Introduction To Our Project

Trigger Warning: This blog post discusses eating, food, and nutrition

Driving down any American city or town, there are fast food restaurants lining the streets. Faced with time constraints from work, childcare, and commuting, many people often turn to convenience foods to save time. Although these restaurants offer a solution to lost time in terms of food preparation and clean up, they simultaneously propose a new problem: a poor diet. According to a 2015 review, fast food is often high in sugar, salt, saturated or trans fats, and many processed preservatives, while also lacking beneficial nutrients. The goal of this blog is to answer the question: “Which fast food items from various restaurants best fit health-conscious dietary needs?” By categorizing all of the menu items at the most popular fast-food restaurants, we aim to provide readers with information that might influence their next order. Should you find yourself at Arbys, Burger King, Chick-Fil-A, Dairy Queen, McDonald’s, Sonic, Subway, or Taco Bell, we hope that you’ll be equipped with exactly what you need to know in order to stick to your health goals.

For reference, here are the average daily requirements for various types of nutrition:

• Calories: 2000-2500 kcal/day for men, and 1600-2000 kcal/day for women.
• Protein: 0.8-1.0 g/kg of body weight/day.
• Carbohydrates: 45-65% of total daily calories, or at least 130 g/day.
• Fat: 20-35% of total daily calories, or at least 20-35 g/day.
• Cholesterol: Less than 300 milligrams per day for most adults, and less than 200 milligrams per day for individuals with heart disease or high blood cholesterol levels.
• Sodium: Less than 2,300 milligrams per day for most adults, and less than 1,500 milligrams per day for individuals with high blood pressure, kidney disease, or other health conditions.
• Sugar: the American Heart Association recommends no more than 25 grams per day for women and 38 grams per day for men.

Our data is from Kaggle and was created for the purpose of analyzing the health of different fast food items. It can be found at this link: (https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/ulrikthygepedersen/fastfood-nutrition), where you can view other variables that were not a part of our analysis if you are interested in exploring further.

A possible limitation of our data analysis is the fact that the nutritional information or availability of certain menu items could differ depending on the location. Our data does not account for this variability. Another limitation is that we focus on two kinds of nutrients at a time. It is difficult to get a total picture of health when you are only given enough information to compare two health components. To remedy this, we provide a matrix of plots with comparisons for all our variables at the end of each restaurant’s analysis.

Arbys

## # A tibble: 4 × 5
##   calories protein  size withinss cluster
##      <dbl>   <dbl> <int>    <dbl> <fct>  
## 1     484.    26.3    13   35928. 1      
## 2     950     46       3   19834  2      
## 3     678.    37.3    24   71350. 3      
## 4     259.    15.6    15   76085. 4

##   calories  protein
## 1 483.8462 26.30769
## 2 950.0000 46.00000
## 3 678.3333 37.29167
## 4 258.6667 15.60000

Burger King

## # A tibble: 3 × 5
##   calories protein  size withinss cluster
##      <dbl>   <dbl> <int>    <dbl> <fct>  
## 1     655.    30.4    27  247228. 1      
## 2     346.    16.3    29  198721. 2      
## 3    1052.    59.9    13  384342. 3

##    calories  protein
## 1  654.8148 30.37037
## 2  345.5172 16.27586
## 3 1052.3077 59.92308

## $`1`
##  [1] "Bacon King Jr"                                                  
##  [2] "Double Bacon Cheeseburger"                                      
##  [3] "Extra Long Cheeseburger"                                        
##  [4] "Homestyle Cheeseburger"                                         
##  [5] "Sourdough King Single"                                          
##  [6] "Bacon & Cheese Whopper"                                         
##  [7] "WHOPPER w/o Cheese"                                             
##  [8] "WHOPPER w/ Cheese"                                              
##  [9] "Bacon Cheddar Ranch Chicken Salad w/ grilled Chicken & Dressing"
## [10] "Bacon Cheddar Ranch Chicken Salad w/ crispy Chicken & Dressing" 
## [11] "Chicken BLT Salad w/ Grilled Chicken"                           
## [12] "Chicken BLT Salad w/ Crispy Chicken"                            
## [13] "Chicken Caesar Salad w/ Grilled Chicken"                        
## [14] "Chicken Caesar Salad w/ Crispy Chicken"                         
## [15] "Chicken, Apple & Cranberry Salad w/ Grilled Chicken"            
## [16] "Chicken, Apple & Cranberry Salad w/ Crispy Chicken"             
## [17] "Bacon Cheddar Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich"                    
## [18] "Big Fish Sandwich"                                              
## [19] "Chicken Cordon Bleu Sandwich"                                   
## [20] "Chicken Parmesan Sandwich"                                      
## [21] "Crispy Buffalo Chicken Melt"                                    
## [22] "Crispy Chicken Sandwich"                                        
## [23] "Original Chicken Sandwich"                                      
## [24] "Sourdough Chicken Club"                                         
## [25] "Spicy Chicken Nuggets"                                          
## [26] "Spicy Crispy Chicken Sandwich"                                  
## [27] "Spicy Crispy Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich"                         
## 
## $`2`
##  [1] "Bacon Cheeseburger"                                          
##  [2] "Bacon Cheeseburger Deluxe"                                   
##  [3] "Cheeseburger"                                                
##  [4] "Double Cheeseburger"                                         
##  [5] "Double Hamburger"                                            
##  [6] "Hamburger"                                                   
##  [7] "Rodeo Burger"                                                
##  [8] "WHOPPER JR. w/o Cheese"                                      
##  [9] "WHOPPER JR. w/ Cheese"                                       
## [10] "Garden Grilled Chicken Salad w/ Grilled Chicken, no dressing"
## [11] "Garden Grilled Chicken Salad w/ Crispy Chicken, no dressing" 
## [12] "Side Caesar Salad with dressing"                             
## [13] "Side Garden Salad and Avocado Ranch Dressing"                
## [14] "BBQ Bacon Crispy Chicken Sandwich"                           
## [15] "BK VEGGIE Burger"                                            
## [16] "Chicken Burger"                                              
## [17] "Chicken Fries"                                               
## [18] "4 Piece Chicken Nuggets"                                     
## [19] "6 Piece Chicken Nuggets"                                     
## [20] "Chicken Nuggets (10pc)"                                      
## [21] "Crispy Chicken Jr."                                          
## [22] "Grilled Chicken Sandwich"                                    
## [23] "Grilled Chili Cheese Dog"                                    
## [24] "Grilled Hot Dog"                                             
## [25] "Jalapeno Chicken Fries"                                      
## [26] "Pretzel Chicken Fries"                                       
## [27] "Rodeo Crispy Chicken Sandwich"                               
## [28] "4 Piece Spicy Chicken Nuggets"                               
## [29] "Spicy Crispy Chicken Jr."                                    
## 
## $`3`
##  [1] "American Brewhouse King"      "Bacon & Swiss Sourdough King"
##  [3] "Bacon King"                   "BBQ Bacon King"              
##  [5] "Double Quarter Pound King"    "Jalapeno King Sandwich"      
##  [7] "Mushroom & Swiss King"        "Rodeo King"                  
##  [9] "Sourdough King Double"        "Steakhouse King"             
## [11] "DOUBLE WHOPPER w/o Cheese"    "DOUBLE WHOPPER w/ Cheese"    
## [13] "20 Piece Chicken Nuggets"

Chick-Fil-A

## # A tibble: 3 × 5
##   calories protein  size withinss cluster
##      <dbl>   <dbl> <int>    <dbl> <fct>  
## 1     850     63.3     3   33801. 1      
## 2     436.    32.8    14   56567. 2      
## 3     173     20.7    10   42806. 3

##   calories  protein
## 1 850.0000 63.33333
## 2 435.7143 32.78571
## 3 173.0000 20.70000

## $`1`
## [1] "30 piece Chicken Nuggets"    "Chicken Enchiladas Meal Kit"
## [3] "Chicken Parmesan Meal Kit"  
## 
## $`2`
##  [1] "Chargrilled Chicken Club Sandwich"   
##  [2] "Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich"        
##  [3] "3 Piece Chick-n-Strips"              
##  [4] "4 piece Chick-n-Strips"              
##  [5] "Chicken Deluxe"                      
##  [6] "12 piece Chicken Nuggets"            
##  [7] "Chicken Salad Sandwich"              
##  [8] "Chicken Sandwich"                    
##  [9] "Spicy Grilled Chicken Sub Sandwich"  
## [10] "Regular Grilled Chicken Sub Sandwich"
## [11] "Smokehouse BBQ Bacon Sandwich"       
## [12] "Spicy Chicken Sandwich"              
## [13] "Spicy Deluxe"                        
## [14] "Chargrilled Chicken Cool Wrap"       
## 
## $`3`
##  [1] "Chick-n-Slider"                   "1 Piece Chick-n-Strips"          
##  [3] "2 Piece Chick-n-Strips"           "4 piece Chicken Nuggets"         
##  [5] "6 piece Chicken Nuggets"          "8 piece Chicken Nuggets"         
##  [7] "4 Piece Grilled Chicken Nuggets"  "6 Piece Grilled Chicken Nuggets" 
##  [9] "8 piece Grilled Chicken Nuggets"  "12 Piece Grilled Chicken Nuggets"

Dairy Queen

Mcdonalds

Sonic

Subway

##   calories     sugar
## 1 250.9302  6.930233
## 2 883.4615 15.076923
## 3 538.1481 10.333333

Taco Bell

Conclusion

Click a point on the map to learn more about the restaurant located there.

References

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• Pedersen, Ulrik Thyge. “Fastfood Nutrition.” Kaggle, 21 Mar. 2023, https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/ulrikthygepedersen/fastfood-nutrition.

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• Shahh, Khushi. “Fast Food Restaurants across US.” Kaggle, 31 Aug. 2021, https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/khushishahh/fast-food-restaurants-across-us.

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